I think it was part of both. In the series I cited earlier, a survivor said once a doctor was called over to a man, he would open his eyelids and say “he’s gone” They would remove his lifejacket as it was needed, the dead sailor would sink and the survivor described it as “shark meat” There are also other accounts where they would hear a sailor scream and be gone.
Also, several hundred were killed or later died from the initial hits. Two torpedoes hit, but the second one apparently was a direct one, and into the magazine area. It was a very hot night in the Western Pacific, and many chose to sleep on deck instead of their oven bunks. Thus the direct hit killed many as a result.
You are right, it should be...
I didn't write the Speech.
Thanks for the additional details. I sure didn’t mean to make light of the manner of the sailors’s deaths. Dead is dead, be it drowning, shark or otherwise. The movie JAWS leaves people with the impression that sharks were just feasting in a frenzy on surviving sailors for days. The detailed show I watched about it left a very different impression. Like you said, guys would just take the life preserver off a goner and he would just sink down to where the sharks would scavenge on him.
Terrible in any event.